February 2015 - Ron Parsons

Ron ParsonsWe are fortunate to be able to welcome back Ron Parsons as guest speaker for our February Meeting. Ron will be speaking about his experience traveling to Columbia in August of 2014 and the many orchids he encountered there. His trip included visits to nurseries, forest reserves, and a national park as well as three days at the Medellín orchid show and botanical gardens. All in all he saw and took pictures of nearly 120 native orchid species in bloom in the wild, as well as hundreds of others at the show and nurseries.

Ron Parsons has been growing orchids for going on 40 years and has been interested in and has grown species orchids for most of that time. He loves to photograph orchids and other flowers whenever he can, whether it be in collections or trips to see them in nature. Ron’s collection of photographs includes approximately 40,000 digital images, most of which are orchids, and a slide library of flower photographs that exceeds 100,000 images. He has published about 2500 photos, which have appeared in magazines, periodicals, journals, and books.  

As an author, Ron has co-authored three books with Mary Gerritsen: 'Masdevallias, Gems of the Orchid World', 'Calochortus, Mariposa Lilies and their Relatives' , and a two-volume set titled 'A Compendium of Miniature Orchid Species'. The last book has nearly 1200 pages, 1800 photographs, and features more than 500 species.